Jacques Lemire wrote:
> On the contrary, languages like C++ (and Java) and
> C# are full of concepts and ideas coming from FP
> languages. For example, the catch/try/throw construct
> is coming directly from Common Lisp (Lisp is a
> (although impure) FP language).
This is, needless to say, something of a matter of opinion and historical
interpretation. I wouldn't call LISP an FP language, though it is surely
ancestral to many FP languages, and many FP concepts have their basis in
LISP features.
FP has had some influence on non-FP languages, surely, but usually the
effect of this influence has been not to add core FP capabilities or allow
FP thinking, but instead to add some isolated feature that is more or less
orthogonal to FP, even if it originated in an FP language. Exceptions are a
good example of this; they really have nothing to do with FP as such (in the
sense of "FP is sugared lambda calculus"). How many non-FP languages have
real higher-order functions? Certainly not C++, despite the STL's "function
objects".
> I would not be a bit suprise to see tuples, lists and
> cons(es) introduce in the next generation of languages.
Which "next generation"? If you mean the descendants of C++ and Java, I
would be quite surprised to see LISP-style lists built into them.
> If you what to see the limitations of OO and C++, take
> a look at the MFC, MFC architects had to introduce macros.
Well, I'm not sure that's a fair target. I don't think anyone knowledgeable
about OO would consider MFC (or C++ itself) a very good example of it.
Craig
